Internet2 Releases Privacy-Preserving Web Authorization Software

The Internet2 initiative announced the first production version of open-source software designed for active privacy management. The Shibboleth 1.0 software provides an authentication and authorization architecture that enables inter-institutional sharing of Web resources subject to access controls. Shibboleth also aims to provide a policy framework that will allow inter-operation within the higher education community. A key concept within Shibboleth is “federated Administration,” in which the origin campus (home to the browser user) provides attribute assertions about that user to the target site. A trust fabric exists between campuses, allowing each site to identify the other speaker, and assign a trust level. A number of leading universities are participating in the project. The Shibboleth software was developed under the auspices of the National Science Foundation’s Middleware Initiative (NMI). Enterprise software companies are also expected to incorporate Shibboleth into their products are services.http://shibboleth.internet2.eduhttp://www.internet2.edu